Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) I Want To Be Alone... You will receive an email shortly to confirm your email address. Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) I Want To Be Alone... title details and video sharing options now playing Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) I Want To Be Alone... The dancer Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo, uttering the line she would never escape) wants to be alone, not realizing that the thieving Baron (John Barrymore) is with her all along, in this famous scene from director Edmund Goulding's Grand Hotel, 1932. View the TCMDb entry for Grand Hotel (1932) share video Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) I Want To Be... The dancer Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo, uttering what would... Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) I Want To Be Alone...

The dancer Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo, uttering the line she would never escape) wants to be alone, not realizing that the thieving Baron (John Barrymore) is with her all along, in this famous scene from director Edmund Goulding's Grand Hotel, 1932. > Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) I Have A Rather... Textile magnate Preysing (Wallace Beery) is pleased that... Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) I... Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) I Have A Rather Nice Figure Textile magnate Preysing (Wallace Beery) is pleased that he's at last got sexy stenographer Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford) to himself but alarmed that his deal seems to be crashing, John Barrymore on the balcony advancing another plot, in MGM's all-star Grand Hotel, 1932.> Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) I Have A... Epic take by director Edmund Goulding, at the front desk,...

Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) I Have A Complaint Epic take by director Edmund Goulding, at the front desk, mostly Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) griping, meeting the Baron (brother John Barrymore), Dr. Otternschlag (Lewis Stone) and concierge (Charles Trowbridge), then Joan Crawford's entrance, in MGM's all-star Grand Hotel, 1932.> Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) Do I Look Like... Transition through the famous lobby shot, then the chiseling... Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) Do I Look Like A Baron? Transition through the famous lobby shot, then the chiseling Baron (John Barrymore) at work on the new stenographer Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford), interrupted by pensioner Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore), in MGM's Grand Hotel, 1932.> Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) All The Best... Opening scene introducing many from the all-but...

Grand Hotel (1932) -- (Movie Clip) All The Best People Opening scene introducing many from the all-but unprecedented line-up of MGM stars, Jean Hersholt, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, at the fictional hotel in Berlin, Garbo, Crawford and others yet to come, in Irving Thalberg's hit all-star experiment Grand Hotel, 1932.> garbo: "i want to be alone!" - YouTube garbo: "i want to be alone!" Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Uploaded on Aug 31, 2009 from the movie grand hotel Category Greta Garbo - Biography - IMDb Greta Garbo Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Trivia (68) | Personal Quotes (20) | Salary (16) Overview (5) 5' 7½" (1.71 m) Mini Bio (1) Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18, 1905, in Stockholm, Sweden, to Anna Lovisa (Johansdotter), who worked at a jam factory, and Karl Alfred Gustafsson, a laborer. She was fourteen when her father died, which left the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and go to work in a department store. The store used her as a model in its newspaper ads. She had no film aspirations until she appeared in short advertising film at that same department store while she was still a teenager. Erik A. Petschler , a comedy director, saw the film and gave her a small part in his Luffar-Petter (1922).

Encouraged by her own performance, she applied for and won a scholarship to a Swedish drama school. While there she appeared in at least one film, En lyckoriddare (1921). Both were small parts, but it was a start. Finally famed Swedish director Mauritz Stiller pulled her from the drama school for the lead role in The Saga of Gösta Berling (1924). At 18 Greta was on a roll. Following The Joyless Street (1925) both Greta and Stiller were offered contracts with MGM, and her first film for the studio was the American-made Torrent (1926), a silent film in which she didn't have to speak a word of English. After a few more films, including The Temptress (1926), Love (1927) and A Woman of Affairs (1928), Greta starred in Anna Christie (1930) (her first "talkie"), which not only gave her a powerful screen presence but also garnered her an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress (she didn't win).

Later that year she filmed Romance (1930), which was somewhat of a letdown, but she bounced back in 1931, landing another lead role in Mata Hari (1931), which turned out to be a major hit. Greta continued to give intense performances in whatever was handed her. The next year she was cast in what turned out to be yet another hit, Grand Hotel (1932). However, it was in MGM's Anna Karenina (1935) that she gave what some consider the performance of her life. She was absolutely breathtaking in the role as a woman torn between two lovers and her son. Shortly afterwards, she starred in the historical drama Queen Christina (1933) playing the title character to great acclaim. She earned an Oscar nomination for her role in the romantic drama Camille (1936), again playing the title character. Her career suffered a setback the following year in Conquest (1937), which was a box office disaster. She later made a comeback when she starred in Ninotchka (1939), which showcased her comedic side.

It wasn't until two years later she made what was to be her last film, Two-Faced Woman (1941), another comedy. But the film drew controversy and was condemned by the Catholic Church and other groups and was a box office failure, which left Garbo shaken. After World War II Greta, by her own admission, felt that the world had changed perhaps forever and she retired, never again to face the camera. She would work for the rest of her life to perpetuate the Garbo mystique. Her films, she felt, had their proper place in history and would gain in value. She abandoned Hollywood and moved to New York City. She would jet-set with some of the world's best-known personalities such as Aristotle Onassis and others. She spent time gardening and raising flowers and vegetables. In 1954 Greta was given a special Oscar for past unforgettable performances. She even penned her biography in 1990. On April 15, 1990, Greta died of natural causes in New York and with her went the "Garbo Mystique". She was 84. Interred at Skogskyrkogården Cemetery, Stockholm, Sweden.

Lived the last few years of her life in absolute seclusion. October 1997: Ranked #38 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. Letters and correspondence between Garbo and poet, socialite and notorious lesbian Mercedes de Acosta were unsealed on April 15, 2000, exactly 10 years after Garbo's death (per De Acosta's instructions). The letters revealed no love affair between the two, as had been rumored. Garbo, according to director Jacques Feyder : "At 9 o'clock a.m. the work may begin. 'Tell Mrs. Garbo we're ready,' says the director. 'I'm here,' a low voice answers, and she appears, perfectly dressed and combed as the scene needs. Nobody could say by what door she came but she's there. And at 6 o'clock PM, even if the shot could be finished in five minutes, she points at the watch and goes away, giving you a sorry smile. She's very strict with herself and hardly pleased with her work.

She never looks at rushes nor goes to the premieres but some days later, early in the afternoon, enters all alone an outskirts movie house, takes place in a cheap seat and gets out only when the projection finishes, masked with her sunglasses. Once voted by The Guinness Book of World Records as the most beautiful woman who ever lived. Her parents were Karl and Anna Gustafson, and she also had an older sister and brother, Alva Garbo and Sven Garbo . Her father died when she was 14 of nephritis, and her sister was also dead of lymphatic cancer by the time Greta was 21 years old. Her personal favorite of all her movies was Camille (1936). She disliked Clark Gable , a feeling that was mutual. She thought his acting was wooden while he considered her a snob. Left John Gilbert standing at the altar in 1927 when she got cold feet about marrying him. Before making it big, she worked as a soap-latherer in a barber's shop back in Sweden.

During filming, whenever there was something going on that wasn't to her liking, she would simply say, "I think I'll go back to Sweden!", which frightened the studio heads so much that they gave in to her every whim. In the mid-'50s she bought a seven-room apartment in New York City (450 East 52nd St.) and lived there until she died. 1951: Became a US citizen. Garbo's sets were closed to all visitors and sometimes even the director! When asked why, she said: "During these scenes I allow only the cameraman and lighting man on the set. The director goes out for a coffee or a milkshake. When people are watching, I'm just a woman making faces for the camera. It destroys the illusion. If I am by myself, my face will do things I cannot do with it otherwise." Garbo was criticized for not aiding the Allies during WWII, but it was later disclosed that she had helped Britain by identifying influential Nazi sympathizers in Stockholm and by providing introductions and carrying messsages for British agents. Garbo was prone to chronic depression and spent many years attacking it through Eastern philosophy and a solid health food regimen.

However, she never gave up smoking and cocktails. Except at the very beginning of her career, she granted no interviews, signed no autographs, attended no premieres and answered no fan mail. Her volatile mentor/director Mauritz Stiller , who brought her to Hollywood, was abruptly fired from directing her second MGM Hollywood film, The Temptress (1926), after repeated arguments with MGM execs. Unable to hold a job in Hollywood, he returned to Sweden in 1928 and died shortly after at age 45. Garbo was devastated. Garbo actually hoped to return to films after the war but, for whatever reason, no projects ever materialized. She was as secretive about her relatives as she was about herself, and, upon her death, the names of her survivors could not immediately be determined. Never married, she invested wisely and was known for her extreme frugality. Related to Anna Sundstrand of the Swedish pop group Play. Although it was believed that Garbo lived as an invalid in her post-Hollywood career, this is incorrect. She was a real jet setter, traveling with international tycoons and socialites.

In the 1970s she traveled less and grew more and more eccentric, although she still took daily walks through Central Park with close friends and walkers. Due to failing health in the late 1980s, her mobility was challenged. In her final year it was her family that cared for her, including taking her to dialysis treatments. She died with them by her side. She was originally chosen for the lead roles in The Paradine Case (1947), My Cousin Rachel (1952) and "The Wicked Dutchess". She turned down these roles, with the exception of "The Wicked Dutchess", which was never shot due to financial problems. Popularized trench coats and berets in the 1930s. According to her friend, producer William Frye , he offered Garbo $1 million to star as the Mother Superior in his film The Trouble with Angels (1966). When she declined, he cast Rosalind Russell in the part--at a much lower salary. She was voted the 25th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly. Sister of Sven and Alva.

Her favorite American director was Ernst Lubitsch , although Clarence Brown , directed her in six films, including the classics Flesh and the Devil (1926), A Woman of Affairs (1928), Anna Christie (1930) and Anna Karenina (1935). Her first "talkie" film was Anna Christie (1930). She was voted the 8th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere Magazine. Was named #5 Actress on The American Film Institute's 50 Greatest Screen Legends Spanish sculptor Pablo Gargallo created three pieces based on Garbo: "Masque de Greta Garbo à la mèche," "Tête de Greta Garbo avec chapeau," and "Masque de Greta Garbo aux cils". Is one of the many movie stars mentioned in Madonna 's song "Vogue" Pictured on a 37¢ USA commemorative postage stamp issued 23 September 2005, five days after her 100th birthday. On the same day, Sweden issued a 10kr stamp with the same design.

The likeness on the stamps was based on a photograph taken during the filming of As You Desire Me (1932). Once lived in the famed Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles (8221 Sunset Boulevard). Grandaunt of Derek Reisfield and Scott Reisfield , children of Gray Reisfield and Donald Reisfield . Her first film appearance ever was in a short advertising film that ran in local theaters in Stockholm. Her performance as Ninotchka in Ninotchka (1939) is ranked #25 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006). Her greatest confidante was Salka Viertel , a German friend who had known her back in Sweden. Viertel proved to be very manipulative of her, including relationships (particularly with Mercedes de Acosta ), film choices and general living. It was Viertel, in fact, who persuaded her not to return to films. Ironically, Viertel was friendly with Marlene Dietrich , Garbo's enemy, whom Salka had known back in the period of Germany's Weimar Republic, and she had a lot of dirt on Dietrich's deepest secrets and past.

Garbo's film choices were largely determined by Salka's persuasion; they co-starred in the German version of Anna Christie (1930), and shortly after that Garbo insisted that Salka be placed on the MGM payroll as a writer for her films. Is portrayed by Kristina Wayborn in The Silent Lovers (1980) Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 316-319. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999. In Italy, her first films (like Mata Hari (1931) and Grand Hotel (1932)) were dubbed by Francesca Braggiotti . Because Braggiotti had been living in the United States for many years and had a slight American accent, the Italian public didn't really accept her voice so the very Italian Tina Lattanzi was chosen as Garbo's official Italian voice instead (she even re-dubbed Mata Hari (1931)).

For her last two films Ninotchka (1939) and Two-Faced Woman (1941), she was dubbed by Andreina Pagnani . When some of Garbo films were re-released in Italy in the 1960's, they were re-dubbed once more. This is how stage actress Anna Proclemer lent her voice to the divine Garbo. Gary Cooper was reportedly one of her favorite actors. She requested him for several of her films, but nothing ever materialized. Throughout her MGM career she insisted that William H. Daniels be cinematographer on her pictures. This may not have been purely superstition, as the two notable films she made without him-- Conquest (1937) and Two-Faced Woman (1941)--were her only notable flops. She was Adolf Hitler 's favorite actress. In late 1934, after Queen Christina (1933) and The Painted Veil (1934), which were both huge hits in Europe (making twice their budget in the UK alone) but underwhelming US successes, Garbo signed a contract with MGM saying that she would only make films under David O.

Selznick and Irving Thalberg . Her next two films, Anna Karenina (1935) and Camille (1936), were notable hits at the US box office, and produced by Selznick and Thalberg respectively. In 1937 her contract had to be revised, as Selznick left the studio in 1935 and Thalberg had died. She made only three films after "Camille". When she heard that David O. Selznick , who had produced her hit Anna Karenina (1935), was leaving MGM in 1935 to start his own studio, she begged him to stay, promising that she would let him personally supervise all of her pictures exclusively. He said that it would be a great honor, but he had other plans. Ironically, the usually very finicky Irving Thalberg , Garbo's other favorite producer, was the first person to give Selznick money to start his company ($200,000). Mentioned in The Killers ' "The Ballad of Michael Valentine". Mentioned in the song "Celluloid Heroes" by The Kinks .

Was offered the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1950), but she turned it down. Gloria Swanson was cast instead and she went on to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance. A photograph of Garbo, probably cut from a movie magazine, was one of several images of movie stars, royalty, pieces of art, and family members used as decoration by Anne Frank on the wall of her room in the "Secret Annex" in Amsterdam where she and her family hid from July 1942 until their capture by the Nazis in August 1944. Was offered the role of Mama Hanson in I Remember Mama (1948), but she turned it down. Irene Dunne was cast instead and went on to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance. Is going to be on the 50 Kronors banknote in 2015. Mentioned in the song "Perfect Skin" by Lloyd Cole & The Commotions.

For her last acting role of Siobhan O'Dea on Murder, She Wrote: Wearing of the Green (1988), Jean Peters modeled her character after Garbo, as she was portraying a reclusive foreign actress who goes into seclusion following the demise of her lover at the height of her career. In 1924 Mauritz Stiller planned to shoot a film in Turkey titled "The Odalisque from Smyrna" and had hired Conrad Veidt and Einar Hansen as stars. Stiller, along with Hansen and protégé Garbo, left for Istanbul but the promised financing vanished. Stiller reportedly returned to Berlin to raise backing, but failed. Garbo remained in Turkey sulking, not even communicating with fellow Swede Hansen. Eventually she returned to Berlin. Director Clarence Brown said of her, "Working [with her] was easy because she trusted me. I never directed her in anything above a whisper. She was very shy, so we'd go through the changes I wanted in a little quiet whisper off in the corner, without letting others know what I was telling her. I learned through experience that Garbo had something behind the eyes that told the whole story that I couldn't see from my distance.

Sometimes I would be dissatisfied with a take, but would go ahead and print it anyway. On the screen Garbo multiplied the effect of the scene I had taken. It was something that no one else ever had. According to a 1974 Michael Parkinson interview with Orson Welles , Garbo did two bread commercials for theater use before she changed her name. The films existed at a Stockholm archive at that time. At the Swedish School of Drama, where she studied from 1921-24, she made a close friend with Vera Schmiterlöw , which grew into a lifelong friendship. The intimate correspondence between the two are saved in the National Archives of Sweden. In 2005 three of these numerous letters were stolen from the archives and have not yet been found. She was the last surviving person mentioned in the song "You're the Top" featured in the 1934 Cole Porter musical "Anything Goes". First Swedish actress to be nominated for an Academy Award. The others are Ingrid Bergman , Lena Olin , Ann-Margret , and Alicia Vikander who won the Oscar. The only Swedish actor to be nominated is Max von Sydow .

Mentioned in the song "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes . Mentioned in the song "She Keeps On Coming" by The Bee Gees. Norwegian Air Shuttle has a portrait of Greta Garbo on the tail of one of their Boeing 737's. It is one of their many "Tail Fin Heroes". According to director Albert Lewin "[on casting the leading role in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)]: One day, I received a message from Cedric Gibbons, who wanted to see me on a matter of urgency and secrecy. Gibby was the only close friend of Greta Garbo around the studio, and he had been deputed to tell me that Garbo wanted to play Dorian. Indeed, it was the only role she would come back to the screen for. Of course, I moved heaven and earth to set it up. But everyone had a fit: the censorship problem, formidable anyway, would have become insurmountable with a woman. Personal Quotes (20) There is no one who would have me . . . I can't cook. Being a movie star, and this applies to all of them, means being looked at from every possible direction.

You are never left at peace, you're just fair game. You don't have to be married to have a good friend as your partner for life. I wish I were supernaturally strong so I could put right everything that is wrong. Life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it. Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening. I never said, "I want to be alone".I only said, "I want to be left alone". There is a whole world of difference. I don't want to be a silly temptress. I cannot see any sense in getting dressed up and doing nothing but tempting men in pictures. The story of my life is about back entrances, side doors, secrets elevators and other ways of getting in and out of places so that people won't bother me. If only those who dream about Hollywood knew how difficult it all is. Your joys and sorrows. You can never tell them. You cheapen the inside of yourself if you do. There are some who want to get married and others who don't. I have never had an impulse to go to the altar. I am a difficult person to lead.

[asked in her later years by a fan if she is Greta Garbo] I WAS Greta Garbo. If you're going to die on screen, you've got to be strong and in good health. There are many things in your heart you can never tell another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself, when you tell them. I live like a monk: with one toothbrush, one cake of soap, and a pot of cream. [on secrets] Every one of us lives his life just once; if we are honest, to live once is enough. [on Hollywood in 1926] Here, it is boring, incredibly boring, so boring I can't believe it's true. [in 1932, about her recreational preferences] If I needed recreation, I liked to be out of doors: to trudge about in a boy's coat and boy's shoes; to ride horseback, or shoot craps with the stable boys, or watch the sun set in a blaze of glory over the Pacific Ocean. You see, I am still a bit of a tomboy.

Most hostesses disapprove of this trousered attitude to life, so I do not inflict upon them. [on another factor contributing to her decision to shun publicity (1932)] I am still a little nervous, a little self-conscious about my English. I cannot express myself well at parties. I speak haltingly. I feel awkward, shy, afraid. In Hollywood, where every teat table bristles with gossip-writers, what I say might be misunderstood. So I am silent as the grave about my private affairs. Rumors fly about. I am mum. My private affairs are strictly private. [in 1932, on director Mauritz Stiller , the nature of her relationship with him and the part it played in cultivating her well-publicized preference for privacy over publicity] Stiller's death was a great blow to me. For so long I had been his satellite. All Europe at that time regarded Stiller as the most significant figure in the film world. Directors hurried to the projecting rooms where his prints were shown. They took with them their secretaries and, in the dim silence, they dictated breathless comments on the wide sweep of his magnificent technique.

Stiller had found me, an obscure artist in Sweden, and brought me to America. I worshiped him. There are some, of course, who say it was a love story. It was more. It was utter devotion which only the very young can know--the adoration of a student for her teacher, of a timid girl for a mastermind. In his studio, Stiller taught me how to do everything: how to eat; how to turn my head; how to express love--and hate. Off the screen I studied his every whim, wish and demand. I lived my life according to the plans he laid down. He told what to say and what to do. When Stiller died I found myself like a ship without a rudder. I was bewildered--lost--and very lonely. I resolutely refused to talk to reporters because I didn't know what to say. By degrees I dropped out of the social whirl of Hollywood. I retired into my shell. I built a wall of repression around my real self, and I lived--and still live--behind it.

Salary (16) Greta Garbo - IMDb IMDb Actress | Soundtrack Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18, 1905, in Stockholm, Sweden, to Anna Lovisa (Johansdotter), who worked at a jam factory, and Karl Alfred Gustafsson, a laborer. She was fourteen when her father died, which left the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and go to work in a department store. The store used ... See full bio » Born: a list of 24 people created 25 Mar 2011 a list of 22 people created 23 Mar 2014 a list of 36 people created 06 Apr 2014 a list of 23 people created 13 Aug 2015 a list of 33 people created 5 months ago Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage How much of Greta Garbo's work have you seen? User Polls Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 7 wins & 2 nominations.

See more awards » Known For Ninotchka Nina Ivanovna Yakushova aka Ninotchka (1939) Grand Hotel Grusinskaya - the Dancer (1932) 1932 As You Desire Me (performer: "Tu Ne Sauras Jamais" - uncredited) 1932/I Grand Hotel (performer: "Jeg Elsker Dig (Ich Liebe Dich)" (1864) - uncredited) 1930 Romance (performer: "Annie Laurie" (1834-5), "Liebestraum No. 3 (A Dream of Love)" (1850) - uncredited) Hide 2014 Absolutely Do Not Die!

(Short) (special thanks) 2010 1 a Minute (Documentary) (in memory of: Battled Breast Cancer) 2002 S1m0ne (Simone wishes to thank the following for their contribution to the making of Simone) 1973 Grosse Fische, kleine Fische (TV Movie documentary) Herself 2006 Billy Wilder Speaks (TV Movie documentary) Herself 2005 The World's Most Photographed (TV Mini-Series documentary) Herself 2004 Checking Out: Grand Hotel (Video documentary short) Herself / Various roles 2003 Complicated Women (TV Movie documentary) Herself (uncredited) 2003 Satin and Silk (Video short) Herself 2001 Greta Garbo: A Lone Star (TV Movie documentary) Herself (uncredited) 1998 Biography (TV Series documentary) Herself 1995 Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (TV Mini-Series documentary) Greta Rumfort / Various roles 1994 100 Years at the Movies (TV Short documentary) Herself 1993 Dos reinas

 (Documentary short) Herself 1990 The Divine Garbo (TV Movie documentary) Herself (uncredited) 1988 Talking Pictures (TV Series documentary) Various Characters 1982 Hollywood: The Gift of Laughter (TV Movie documentary) Actress - 'Ninotchka' (uncredited) 1981 Sixty Years of Seduction (TV Movie documentary) 1980 Hollywood (TV Mini-Series documentary) Actress 'Love' / Actress 'Mysterios Lady' / Actress 'Woman of Affairs' 1972 Hollywood: The Dream Factory (TV Movie documentary) Herself - film clips 1969 Hollywood: The Selznick Years (TV Movie documentary) Actress 'Anna Karenina' (uncredited) 1963 Hollywood: The Great Stars (TV Movie documentary) Herself (uncredited) 1961 Hollywood: The Golden Years (TV Movie documentary) Actress 'Flesh and the Devil' (uncredited) Personal Details Other Works: In 1949 she secretly filmed a screen test in preparation for a comeback, which never materialized.

This film was believed lost for decades until a print was discovered by a movie collector. Publicity Listings: 3 Biographical Movies | 21 Print Biographies | 13 Portrayals | 1 Interview | 42 Articles | 16 Pictorials | 47 Magazine Cover Photos | See more » Alternate Names: Did You Know? Personal Quote: [on another factor contributing to her decision to shun publicity (1932)] I am still a little nervous, a little self-conscious about my English. I cannot express myself well at parties. I speak haltingly. I feel awkward, shy, afraid. In Hollywood, where every teat table bristles with gossip-writers, what I say might be misunderstood. So I am silent as the grave about my private affairs. Rumors ...

See more » Trivia: I want to be alone - with my enormous ego: GRETA GARBO: DIVINE STAR BY DAVID BRET | Daily Mail Online I want to be alone - with my enormous ego GRETA GARBO: DIVINE STAR BY DAVID BRET (The Robson Press £20) Published: 14:10 EST, 19 July 2012 | Updated: 12:59 EST, 20 July 2012 Greta Garbo Had you, in the years up until 1990, when she died at the age of 84, encountered a brusque old lady in a black wig, dark glasses, a turned-up collar and her hat brim pulled down over her face, and who was calling herself either Alice Smith, Mary Jones, Harriet Brown, Fraulein Gussie Berger, Jonas Emersen, Mademoiselle Hanson, or Miss Sorenson - then the chances are you met Greta Garbo. I think I’d have been happy to give her a wide berth myself. David Bret’s portrait is of a humourless and egomaniacal woman who gave a new meaning to the word difficult.

When she arrived in Hollywood in 1925, she refused to visit the studio couturiers and hairdressers. She refused invitations to parties and receptions, ‘preferring to wander alone for hours on end, deep in thought’. Wearing the trousers: Garbo in 1972 She refused to attend her own premieres or hold press conferences. She stopped giving interviews early in her career - which lasted in any case only until 1941. If ticked off by the producers for her recalcitrance, she’d reply ‘Fine. Then I will go home to Sweden’. She never answered the phone or opened the mail. One could argue that this was the most brilliantly successful public relations stunt ever devised. The legend that is Garbo must be the envy of every superstar from Madonna to Lady Gaga, by way of Posh Spice and Dame Edna. Garbo achieved immortal status by being invisible. ‘The creative artist should be a rare and solitary spirit,’ she commented. ‘My work absorbs me. I have time for nothing else.’ This sounds noble - but Garbo knew what she was doing. She was so anxious about her status, she returned magazines for a refund if she wasn’t mentioned in them.

She was fully aware that being secretive got people talking about her, and the ‘tantrums, illnesses and indifference’ were deliberate ploys. To keep the studio on its toes, she walked off the set of one film six times, once merely because an infuriated Clark Gable called her ‘a stuck-up broad’. The sole words she spoke to Laurence Olivier, incidentally, whom she fired from Queen Christina, were ‘Life’s a pain, anyway.’ GARBO FACTS In 1950, Garbo was voted the most beautiful woman in the world by The Guinness Book Of Records The famous line ‘I want to be alone’ was spoken by Garbo in Grand Hotel, she never said it personally. Her first spoken line in the ‘talkies’ movie, Anna Christie, was ‘Gimme a whiskey with ginger ale on the side and don’t be stingy, baby’. As she was not yet 21 when she signed her contracts with MGM, she needed her mother’s permission to do so. She disliked co-star Clark Gable and called his acting wooden. He responded that she was a snob. During WWII, she secretly identified influential Nazi sympathisers in Stockholm for British Intelligence.

Greta Garbo was born in Stockholm in 1905 as Greta Gustaffson, the daughter of a Lapp peasant and a butcher. She spent her childhood ‘washing dishes, sweeping the stairs and cleaning the outside toilet’. But even in those distant days she had mood swings. ‘I was up and down,’ she remembered. ‘Happy one moment. The next moment, there was nothing left for me.’ Modern doctors would surely label her bi-polar and put her on pills. Bossy and imperious, according to neighbours, Garbo never recovered from being curbed and beaten at school. ‘From that day she shrank more and more into herself.’ She worked in a barber’s shop, preparing the lather, and modelled hats in a department store. She was an extra in Swedish silent movies and was a student at the Royal Dramatic Academy, where ‘her stance was clumsy, her accent guttural and unrefined, she hardly ever brushed her hair, she dressed sloppily’. Nevertheless, director Mauritz Stiller could detect ‘beautiful raw material for him to shape into form,’ and before his cameras, windblown and dishevelled, Garbo was instantly transfigured.

As Bret says rhapsodically, ‘swathed in furs, the snowflakes swirling about her in an icy wasteland, she creates a vision of astonishing loveliness’. Louis B. Mayer was visiting Europe, saw the footage, and immediately offered Garbo an MGM contract. In California, the actress ‘quickly developed a tendency towards indolence, arrogance and rebelliousness’. Garbo wouldn’t rehearse with other actors, for example, not even for dance numbers, instead ‘preparing her role in the privacy of her home’. As she put it herself, ‘Yes, I was alone. I always went away alone. That is what I like’. Such was her paranoia for privacy, Garbo would book herself two seats at the theatre, positioned next to the aisle, so she’d have no one next to her. Natural beauty: Garbo after her heyday To go out and about, she began adopting all those aliases and disguises. Her favourite pastime was staring out to sea, ‘looking gloomy’. Tennessee Williams said Garbo had ‘the cold quality of a mermaid’. She kept her friends separate, so they could never gang up behind her back ‘and swap notes’.

They were also ‘sworn to the strictest secrecy regarding her movements’. Garbo’s emotional relationships, such as they were, were with women - Mercedes de Acosta, Cécile de Rothschild, Gracie Fields (Gracie Fields?) - and on one occasion she tried to throw the press off the scent by pretending ‘to be having an affair with Noel Coward’. Presumably Kenneth Williams wasn’t available and Julian Clary hadn’t been born. Though Garbo’s estate has suppressed her letters, ‘desperate that her bisexuality should remain buried in the annals of time’, it is on record that Garbo’s favourite roles, in Sweden, were the male parts in Russian classics. She found it thrilling, ‘a woman dressed as a man’, and lolling beside the pool in Beverly Hills she’d puff on a pipe. She always wore trousers and men’s brogues. Nonetheless, Bret surmises that Garbo’s ‘tetchiness and seemingly persistent fatigue’ were due to numerous abortions, even that she had a secret child ‘which died at the age of five’. A stunt double was used for long shots, when Garbo’s ‘swelling figure might be detected’.

The love child of Greta Garbo and Noel Coward? Had it survived it might have been me. Greatest Film Misquotes Greatest Film Misquotes Greatest Movie Misquotes (Part 1) Greatest Movie Mis-Quotes: Some of the most classic film lines or scenes are really only legendary and/or apocryphal, or they are merely movie misquotes, but after many years of repetition and being misquoted in subsequent films, they have become part of the filmgoing public's consciousness. Many of these examples are film quotes that were either commonly attributed wrongly, or in fact were never actually spoken. The top 10 most misquoted film lines are marked with an icon In The Virginian (1929) , one of the earliest Western talkies, Gary Cooper (as the Virginian) gave a famous taunting line to bad guy Trampas (Walter Huston) at the saloon's bar.

At the start of the heated exchange, Trampas challenged the Virginian: Trampas (Walter Huston): "When I wanna know anything from you, I'll tell ya, you long-legged son of a ..." Virginian: (Gary Cooper): "If you wanna call me that, smile." (He quick-drew his gun pressed against Trampas' abdomen) Trampas: (long pause, then grinning) "With a gun against my belly I... I always smile." Play clip from The Virginian (1929) : It was not: "Smile when you call me that!", "Smile when you say that," or "When ya call me that, smile!" Note however that Owen Wister's 1902 Western novel The Virginian actually used the phrase: "When ya call me that, smile!" A second version of the novel was filmed 17 years later, also titled The Virginian (1946), starring Joel McCrea as the title character.

In the remake, the Virginian used the same "smile" line as in the novel when he confronted Trampas at a card table for lying: Virginian (Joel McCrea): "When you call me that, smile!" Trampas (Brian Donlevy): "With a gun against my belly, I always smile." Play clip from The Virginian (1946): In the Marx Brothers comedy film Animal Crackers (1930) , Groucho Marx (as African jungle explorer Captain Geoffrey T. Spaulding) delivered the following line: "One morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know." Play clip from Animal Crackers (1930) : It has often been misquoted as: "...How he got in my pajamas I'll never know." In the Universal horror classic, Dracula (1931) , the legendary blood-sucking Count Dracula (Hungarian-born actor Bela Lugosi) never said: "I want to suck your blood." However, the line was spoken in director Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994). It was used in a humorous context by Dr.

Tom Mason (Ned Bellamy) practicing his Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau) impersonation: "I want to suck your blood." Play clip from Ed Wood (1994): Often misquoted is Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) - yes, Frankenstein was the name of the mad scientist - and his famous shout in Frankenstein (1931) , with the stirring of life within his non-human Monster (Boris Karloff): "It's alive!" Play clip from Frankenstein (1931) : Frankenstein has often been quoted as saying instead: "He's alive! Alive!" Mel Brooks' irreverent spoof Young Frankenstein (1974) featured grandson Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) resuming his late grandfather's experiments, and his loud exclamation to bug-eyed Igor (Marty Feldman) and voluptuous lab assistant Inga (Teri Garr): "Alive. It's alive!

IT'S ALIVE!" Play clip from Young Frankenstein (1974) : The mobster refrain: "You dirty rat!" - was never said verbatim by James Cagney, although he did say something similar in two films: Blonde Crazy (1931) (aka Larceny Lane): "Oh, that dirty, double-crossin' rat. I'd like to get my own hooks on him. I'd tear him to pieces." Play clip from Blonde Crazy (1931): Taxi! (1932): "Come out and take it, ya dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I'll give it to ya through the door!" Play clip from Taxi! (1932): It was misquoted in Cole Porter's Broadway stage classic Anything Goes (1934). It was also misquoted in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) when Michelangelo imitated James Cagney: "You dirty rat. You killed my brudda.

You dirty rat." Play clip from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990): [In Home Alone (1990), Macauley Culkin watched a scene from a fictional B/W gangster film videotape titled, "Angels With Filthy Souls" (a take-off on the Cagney film Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) ), in which gangster Johnny shoots a rival gangster named Snakes, while saying, "Keep the change, ya filthy animal!"] Greta Garbo's most famous quote of all prominently appeared, with her famous accent spoken by the character Grusinskaya, in Grand Hotel (1932) : "I want to be alone." Play clip from Grand Hotel (1932) : Garbo also stated a similar line, including her partner-lover Leon (Melvyn Douglas) in her solitude, in Ninotchka (1939) : "We want to be alone." Play clip from Ninotchka (1939) : It has often thought that statements about Garbo wanting to be alone were non-existent or merely a comment on her reclusive nature in private life.

"Me Tarzan, you Jane" - was a catch-phrase inaccurately-quoted from Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932) . In a 1932 interview, Johnny Weissmuller (as Tarzan) actually claimed: "I didn't have to act in Tarzan, the Ape Man, just said: 'Me Tarzan, You Jane." Jane: "Thank you. Thank you for protecting me." Tarzan: "Me?" Jane: (repeating herself, and pointing to herself to teach him his mistake) "I said: 'Thank you for protecting me.'" Tarzan: (poking at Jane) "Me?" Jane: "No." (she points to herself) "I'm only 'Me' for me." Tarzan: (wrongly again poking at Jane) "Me." Jane: (correcting him and pointing at him) "No. To you, I'm 'You'." Tarzan: (wrongly pointing at himself) "You." Jane: "No. I'm Jane Parker. Understand? Jane. Jane." Tarzan: (pointing at her) "Jane...Jane. Jane." Jane: "Yes, Jane.

(she points at him) And you? (she points at herself and gives her own name) Jane." Tarzan: (he points at her) "Jane." Jane: "And you? (she points at him) You?" Tarzan: (stabbing himself proudly in the chest) "Tarzan, Tarzan." Jane: (emphasizing his correct response) "Tarzan!" Tarzan: (pointing excitedly toward her and back to himself) "Jane. Tarzan." (then more rapidly, poking at her each time he repeats her name, going faster and faster) "Jane. Tarzan. Jane. Tarzan. Jane. Tarzan. Jane. Tarzan. Jane. Tarzan. Jane..." Jane: (exasperated) "Oh, please stop! Let me go! I can't bear this!..." In the short two-reel W.C. Fields comedy The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933), the comedian often stated the following line (with the famous gag of a handful of fake snow being thrown in his face from an opened cabin door).

"And it ain't a fit night out for man or beast." Play clip from The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933): Later, W.C. Fields would reprise the gag during the "play-within-the-play" in The Old-Fashioned Way (1934). "It ain't a fit night out for man or beast." Play clip from The Old Fashioned Way (1934): The phrase became popularized as an easy way to describe awful weather.

It has often been misquoted as: "And it ain't a fit night out for man nor beast." "You're going out (there) a youngster, but you're coming back a star!", "You're going out (on that stage) a nobody, (kid), but you're coming back a star!", or "You're going out a chorus girl, but you're coming back a star!" - all misquotes of the original line in 42nd Street (1933) : "But you keep your feet on the ground and your head on those shoulders of yours and go out, and, Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!" Play clip from 42nd Street (1933) : The following line, a classic double entendre, was not spoken by Mae West in She Done Him Wrong (1933) : "Is that a gun [or pistol] in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?" She did restate the line in her final film, an outrageous comedy titled Sextette (1978). As aging movie-star Marlo Manners, she was speaking to Vance Morton (co-star George Hamilton).

Reportedly, she also spoke the line to an escorting LA police officer who met her at the LA railway station in February, 1936. Note: The line was parodied in at least three other films: In Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974), Madeline Kahn as Lili Von Schtupp quipped: "Is that a ten gallon hat, or are you just enjoying the show?" Play clip from Blazing Saddles (1974) : In Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) , Dolores (Joanna Cassidy) asked Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) - with Roger Rabbit concealed in his pants pocket: "Is that a rabbit in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" Play clip from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) : And in the romantic comedy America's Sweethearts (2001), in a revenge fantasy sequence, the line was parodied in a scene between two movie stars who were at odds with each other after a break-up: Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones): "Oh, Eddie, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

I know you'll never forgive me, but please, please take me back. Oh... you've got a gun in your pocket or just happy to see me?" Eddie Thomas (John Cusack): "Actually, it's a gun." (Bang, bang, bang...) Play clip from America's Sweethearts (2001): Bawdy actress Mae West has often been misquoted, especially with this mis-stated line: "Why, don't you come up and see me sometime, (big boy)?" or "Come up and see me sometime." In fact, the line was stated differently in the 1933 film She Done Him Wrong (1933) . Mae West (as Lady Lou) propositioned her co-star Cary Grant (as Captain Cummings) thusly: Lady Lou: "I always did like a man in a uniform. That one fits you grand. Why don't you come up sometime 'n see me? I'm home every evenin'." Captain: "Yeah, but I'm busy every evening." Lou: "Busy? So, what are you tryin' to do, insult me?" Captain: "Why no, no, not at all.

I'm just busy, that's all..." Lou: "I heard ya, but you ain't kiddin' me any. You know, I met your kind before. Why don't you come up sometime, huh?" Captain: "Well, I..." Later in the film, she again offered her services to Captain Cummings, with a modified invitation: Lou: "Come up again, anytime." Captain: "Thanks, I will." Play clip from She Done Him Wrong (1933) : (variation) Much earlier in the film, she had already invited suave Serge Stanieff (Gilbert Roland) with the same words: Lou: "Come up again, anytime." Serge: "I shall. And I hope you will be alone." Lou: "So do I.

(He graciously kissed her extended hand) Warm, dark, and handsome." Play clip from She Done Him Wrong (1933) : (variation) Toward the end of another Mae West film in the same year, I'm No Angel (1933) , the actress (as lion tamer Tira) also thanked (on the telephone) Juror # 4 for her acquittal and some "beautiful flowers," with her own, self-referential oft-misquoted line: "And don't forget. Come up and see me sometime." In the Laurel and Hardy classic comedy, Sons of the Desert (1933) , Oliver Hardy exclaimed to partner Stan Laurel: "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" Play clip from Sons of the Desert (1933) : He did NOT say: "Well, here's another fine mess you've gotten us into" or "Here's another fine mess you've gotten me into." At the conclusion of the classic adventure film King Kong (1933) , Robert Armstrong (as Carl Denham) uttered the famous closing line: "Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes.

It was Beauty killed the Beast." Play clip from King Kong (1933) : Some have heard it to say: "...'Twas Beauty killed the Beast," although there's little doubt. In The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) , Douglass Dumbrille (as treacherous and sinister Mohammed Khan) said as a taunting threat to Bengal Lancers. In his delivery, he paused after "Well, gentlemen" to give a smile and then a scowl: "Well, gentlemen. We have ways to make men talk." Play clip from The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) : He did NOT say: "We have ways of making you talk," "We have ways of making men talk," or "We have ways to make you (men) talk." The movie was reportedly Adolph Hitler's favorite. The torture method to get them to talk involved sharp slivers of bamboo inserted under fingernails that were set on fire. At the end of the film Poppy (1936), conniving patent-medicine salesman Prof. Eustace P. McGargle (W.C.

Fields) bid farewell to heiress Poppy (Rochelle Hudson), who always thought he was her father. He told her: "That's marvelous. And if we should ever separate, my little plum, I want to give you one little bit of fatherly advice." - "Yes, Pop." - "Never give a sucker an even break." The proverb meant that one should not give a fair chance to a fool (or one easily deceived). It became the title of Fields' later film: Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) . It has been misquoted, often written as: "And remember, Dearie, never give a sucker an even break." In Disney's animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) , the wicked Queen asked her Magic Mirror: "Magic Mirror on the Wall, who is the Fairest one of all?" The misquote (such as: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?") has been heard in a number of films, including: Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) "Mirror, mirror on the wall.

Who's the most drop-dead gorgeous one of all?" Play clip from Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988): 101 Dalmatians (1996) Play clip from Shrek (2001) : "Come with me to the Casbah," followed by "we'll make beautiful music together" - was never said by Charles Boyer to co-star Hedy Lamarr in Algiers (1938). Boyer claimed it was invented by his press agent. It was voiced by cartoon character Pepe LePew in subsequent Looney Tunes cartoons, among others. In fact, animator Chuck Jones based the Warner Brothers cartoon character Pepe LePew, a French skunk, on Charles Boyer's Pepe Le Moko. "You do not have to come with me to the Casbah." Play clip from cartoon "For Scent-imental Reasons" (1949): "Elementary, my dear Watson!" - was a phrase never spoken by the lead character in the many Sherlock Holmes novels from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This mis-quote was found in a film review in the New York Times on October 19, 1929.

The closest phrases in Doyle's writings were in: The Crooked Man ("'Excellent!' I cried. 'Elementary!', said he.") The Adventure of the Cardboard Box ("It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you"). The misquoted catchphrase became popularized only after its trademark use in two films: (1) This was the dialogue in The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1929) (the first Holmes film with sound), with Clive Brook (as Holmes) and H. Reeves-Smith (as Dr. Watson). Watson: "Amazing, Holmes." Holmes: "Elementary, my dear Watson. Elementary." (2) It was also stated twice by Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes character in Twentieth Century Fox's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939). Watson: "Amazing."

Question: In which 1932 film does Greta Garbo say the line ‘I want to be alone’?
Answer: Grand Hotel